Editing for a fan-project I plan on doing

[EditingFan12]

Now, as I've stated in a previous thread, me and a few friends are planning on doing a series of German fandubs of scenes that were cut from the German dubs of some VeggieTales episodes. I will be having the Bible verses that Qwerty shows in the closing countertops localized. However I feel like I can't do this myself. I think I'm really gonna need help. I have made the verses unbulged, though. The first episode we will be dubbing the scenes that were cut from for is Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler. Here's the German verse I've made:

[Attachment 63878 - Click to enlarge]

Here's a link to the folder consisting of all the clips to use:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=188iu3fpDUy5qRFsOuzivhbRD6-CQRENL

If you don't know how to replace the English verse with the German verse, try using "screen insert" and/or motion tracking, whatever works well.

If anyone's willing to help, let me know. Don't forget to send me the edited footage when done.

And as more scenes get dubbed, I'll be updating this thread.

[poisondeathray]

If you're serious about this project - you should learn how to do it since you have more than 1 scene to complete

You need need to learn how to make bezier masks and animated masks (rotoscoping) for the screen inserts. You need rounded masks, because the screen to be replaced is not a "rectangle" with sharp corners, and it has a bouncy cartoony animation

It's analogous to "cutouts" or masks in photoshop, and there are many tutorials online. Probably hundreds of tutorials for "screen replacement", but the majority will be for something like replacing a moving cellphone screen, not a cartoony squash/stretch/morphing screen. But the masking and compositing concepts are the same

Another way to semi-automate the masking besides "mesh tracking", is "rotobrush" in After Effects - It can reduce the amount of manual work for the animated scenes, but it's generally not as accurate as manual rotowork



The other 4 clips are static for the insert. Basically 1 composited frame with alpha channel is all you need for those, since they share the same framing, no motion in terms of camera or monitor animation. You can just overlay a png with alpha channel ("insert_rgba.png" below)

The more time consuming part will be rotoscoping "Qwerty displays the verse.mp4" clip, because of the animation. The insert (your overlay) is known as a "squash and stretch" animation, and it's limited by the bezier mask of the screen insert.



But before you start , every 5th frame is a duplicate. ie. it has not been IVTCed correctly to 23.976p. Also it looks improperly deinterlaced - there are deinterlacing artifacts with aliasing and combing . If you want to do it properly, I'd IVTC the original DVD first. If you don't have the original, at least you should decimate it to 23.976. ("comp.mp4" was decimated to 23.976p so the frames won't match if you use a 29.97 project)


insert_rgba.png (for overlay in your editor)

[Attachment 63889 - Click to enlarge]

this is what it should look like in your editor

[Attachment 63891 - Click to enlarge]

[EditingFan12]

If you're serious about this project - you should learn how to do it since you have more than 1 scene to complete

You need need to learn how to make bezier masks and animated masks (rotoscoping) for the screen inserts. You need rounded masks, because the screen to be replaced is not a "rectangle" with sharp corners, and it has a bouncy cartoony animation

It's analogous to "cutouts" or masks in photoshop, and there are many tutorials online. Probably hundreds of tutorials for "screen replacement", but the majority will be for something like replacing a moving cellphone screen, not a cartoony squash/stretch/morphing screen. But the masking and compositing concepts are the same

Another way to semi-automate the masking besides "mesh tracking", is "rotobrush" in After Effects - It can reduce the amount of manual work for the animated scenes, but it's generally not as accurate as manual rotowork



The other 4 clips are static for the insert. Basically 1 composited frame with alpha channel is all you need for those, since they share the same framing, no motion in terms of camera or monitor animation. You can just overlay a png with alpha channel ("insert_rgba.png" below)

The more time consuming part will be rotoscoping "Qwerty displays the verse.mp4" clip, because of the animation. The insert (your overlay) is known as a "squash and stretch" animation, and it's limited by the bezier mask of the screen insert.



But before you start , every 5th frame is a duplicate. ie. it has not been IVTCed correctly to 23.976p. Also it looks improperly deinterlaced - there are deinterlacing artifacts with aliasing and combing . If you want to do it properly, I'd IVTC the original DVD first. If you don't have the original, at least you should decimate it to 23.976. ("comp.mp4" was decimated to 23.976p so the frames won't match if you use a 29.97 project)


insert_rgba.png (for overlay in your editor)

[Attachment 63889 - Click to enlarge]

this is what it should look like in your editor

[Attachment 63891 - Click to enlarge]

A few things to point out:
1. FYI, I ripped the original footage from an ISO of a DVD of VeggieTales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler (which I do own) with HandBrake. I then trimmed the footage to certain spots with kdenlive. Should I rip the files as MPEG-2s?
2. My uncut fan-edit of the German dub of Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler (and the other VeggieTales episodes whose scenes that were cut from the German dubs that I will be dubbing) is at 576p25. The software I use for video editing currently as mentioned in #1 is kdenlive.
3. I do have Adobe Photoshop. It's the CS6 version.
4. It seems I might have to do the editing myself. It may seem complicated, but I'll give it a try.
5. Are you able to provide me a link to a "cartoony squash/stretch/morphing screen" screen replacement tutorial?
6. How did you make that "comp.mp4" video? Could you provide the steps so I know how to do it? What software did you use?

[poisondeathray]

1. FYI, I ripped the original footage from an ISO of a DVD of VeggieTales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler (which I do own) with HandBrake. I then trimmed the footage to certain spots with kdenlive. Should I rip the files as MPEG-2s?

It's up to you, but my thoughts are if you're going to do something... then do it right

Some things are definitely "wrong" (and there is no way to argue):

-5th frame duplicates means animation will stutter. The original animation is 23.976p. Also more useless frames means larger filesizes, more memory, more masking in the other programs

-Some of these combing artifacts on some frames shouldn't be there . Were they just handbrake errors ? Sometimes there are problems with the original DVD's, you'd have to examine the original to check


[Attachment 63895 - Click to enlarge]


Other things are subjective or personal taste. eg. You can customize the animation to however you want; the original animation had a screen glow that I didn't put in (it's pretty easy to composite in)

Personally I wouldn't use handbrake. If you were going to , you'd have to use "detelecine" in HB (which is equivalent to IVTC), and I would use higher quality for intermediate. I would try to conserve as most quality at each step , until the final distribution format. The clips you provided were encoded at crf23, which are quite lossy for intermediates. I would rip the original clips as mpeg2 and IVTC them in avisynth or vapoursynth and encode as intermediates. Some people would use lossless intermediate workflows, but you need lots of disk space. Some people chose something in between, just higher quality. You choose whatever tradeoffs you want to make, or what works for you

2. My uncut fan-edit of the German dub of Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler (and the other VeggieTales episodes whose scenes that were cut from the German dubs that I will be dubbing) is at 576p25. The software I use for video editing currently as mentioned in #1 is kdenlive.

If the end result is inserting into a "main" 25p version, it's fairly easy (and common practice) to do a "PAL speedup" on original film content. ie. 23.976p => 25p . The other methods are introducing duplicates (jerky, not as smooth), or blends (blurry inserts) . The "negative" of speedup method is the running time changes and audio has to be adjusted +/- pitch shift

(Many/most NLE's do not IVTC properly)

3. I do have Adobe Photoshop. It's the CS6 version.

That's one way to do it, and PS can open video too

Other free tools like blender, natron can too. I suspect some of it can be done in kdenlive too

5. Are you able to provide me a link to a "cartoony squash/stretch/morphing screen" screen replacement tutorial?

I don't know of any specific tutorials that cover this exact scenario, but the basic concepts will be the same in any programs - "Rotoscoping" (animated masks) , compositing. For the distortions you can use corner pin and any kind of warping effect.

6. How did you make that "comp.mp4" video? Could you provide the steps so I know how to do it? What software did you use?

I used After Effects, it's just something I'm familiar with. You can do this in free tools like blender, natron. Some of the composting portions can be done in free NLE's; but many of the free NLE's only have rudimentary masking capabilities. e.g. in shotcut , you currently can't use something like a pen tool and create curved lines or bezier masks. I doubt kdenlive can either. I think it's on the roadmaps for future versions

If you're new to AE or compositing, I don't expect you to understand all this right away, but maybe it will help you in terms of keywords to read up and find/watch tutorials:

I used the rotobrush to roughly isolate the screen. Often you have to clean up a bit on a few frames (it's not as precise as manual rotowork) . It tracks the mask, so it saves time overall . Corner pin for the insert layer (kdenlive and shotcut have corner pin). Warp set to buldge and you can keyframe horizontal and vertical parameters. I adjust the insert layer opacity to 50% so I can see the "original" underneath to use as a rough guide. The brightness is just animating curves effect, but it can be done in many different ways

There are slightly different ways to get similar results. There is going to be some learning curve for any tools you learn.

[EditingFan12]

1. FYI, I ripped the original footage from an ISO of a DVD of VeggieTales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler (which I do own) with HandBrake. I then trimmed the footage to certain spots with kdenlive. Should I rip the files as MPEG-2s?

It's up to you, but my thoughts are if you're going to do something... then do it right

Some things are definitely "wrong" (and there is no way to argue):

-5th frame duplicates means animation will stutter. The original animation is 23.976p. Also more useless frames means larger filesizes, more memory, more masking in the other programs

-Some of these combing artifacts on some frames shouldn't be there . Were they just handbrake errors ? Sometimes there are problems with the original DVD's, you'd have to examine the original to check


[Attachment 63895 - Click to enlarge]


Other things are subjective or personal taste. eg. You can customize the animation to however you want; the original animation had a screen glow that I didn't put in (it's pretty easy to composite in)

Personally I wouldn't use handbrake. If you were going to , you'd have to use "detelecine" in HB (which is equivalent to IVTC), and I would use higher quality for intermediate. I would try to conserve as most quality at each step , until the final distribution format. The clips you provided were encoded at crf23, which are quite lossy for intermediates. I would rip the original clips as mpeg2 and IVTC them in avisynth or vapoursynth and encode as intermediates. Some people would use lossless intermediate workflows, but you need lots of disk space. Some people chose something in between, just higher quality. You choose whatever tradeoffs you want to make, or what works for you

2. My uncut fan-edit of the German dub of Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler (and the other VeggieTales episodes whose scenes that were cut from the German dubs that I will be dubbing) is at 576p25. The software I use for video editing currently as mentioned in #1 is kdenlive.

If the end result is inserting into a "main" 25p version, it's fairly easy (and common practice) to do a "PAL speedup" on original film content. ie. 23.976p => 25p . The other methods are introducing duplicates (jerky, not as smooth), or blends (blurry inserts) . The "negative" of speedup method is the running time changes and audio has to be adjusted +/- pitch shift

(Many/most NLE's do not IVTC properly)

3. I do have Adobe Photoshop. It's the CS6 version.

That's one way to do it, and PS can open video too

Other free tools like blender, natron can too. I suspect some of it can be done in kdenlive too

5. Are you able to provide me a link to a "cartoony squash/stretch/morphing screen" screen replacement tutorial?

I don't know of any specific tutorials that cover this exact scenario, but the basic concepts will be the same in any programs - "Rotoscoping" (animated masks) , compositing. For the distortions you can use corner pin and any kind of warping effect.

6. How did you make that "comp.mp4" video? Could you provide the steps so I know how to do it? What software did you use?

I used After Effects, it's just something I'm familiar with. You can do this in free tools like blender, natron. Some of the composting portions can be done in free NLE's; but many of the free NLE's only have rudimentary masking capabilities. e.g. in shotcut , you currently can't use something like a pen tool and create curved lines or bezier masks. I doubt kdenlive can either. I think it's on the roadmaps for future versions

If you're new to AE or compositing, I don't expect you to understand all this right away, but maybe it will help you in terms of keywords to read up and find/watch tutorials:

I used the rotobrush to roughly isolate the screen. Often you have to clean up a bit on a few frames (it's not as precise as manual rotowork) . It tracks the mask, so it saves time overall . Corner pin for the insert layer (kdenlive and shotcut have corner pin). Warp set to buldge and you can keyframe horizontal and vertical parameters. I adjust the insert layer opacity to 50% so I can see the "original" underneath to use as a rough guide. The brightness is just animating curves effect, but it can be done in many different ways

There are slightly different ways to get similar results. There is going to be some learning curve for any tools you learn.

A few things to keep in mind:
1. It turns out the DVD's original frame rate was actually 29.97fps. Also, FYI, the preset I used to rip the chapters from the DVD is Very Fast 480p30.
2. My VeggieTales German dub uncut fan-edits are actually meant to be in their original pitch.

[poisondeathray]

1. It turns out the DVD's original frame rate was actually 29.97fps. Also, FYI, the preset I used to rip the chapters from the DVD is Very Fast 480p30.

It's telecined to 29.97 for NTSC DVD (it's a North American thing). The original content is 23.976p . Almost all animations are 23.976p . Inverse telecine means "undoing" the telecine process, to recover the original film frames

2. My VeggieTales German dub uncut fan-edits are actually meant to be in their original pitch.

But the sample is from a NTSC DVD, correct ? You are inserting various NTSC DVD clips (720x480) into a "PAL" project 720x576p25?

I'm not familiar with VeggieTales, but is it an American production ? If so, everything will be 23.976p originally, and the German dub version would have been converted by some method to 25p
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeggieTales

Speedup for "NTSC" to "PAL" is almost always the preferred visual method, because it's not jerky, and there are no ugly blends.

How are you doing the audio for the NTSC inserts ?

[EditingFan12]

1. It turns out the DVD's original frame rate was actually 29.97fps. Also, FYI, the preset I used to rip the chapters from the DVD is Very Fast 480p30.

It's telecined to 29.97 for NTSC DVD (it's a North American thing). The original is 23.976p . Almost all animations are 23.976p . Inverse telecine means "undoing" the telecine process, to recover the original film frames

2. My VeggieTales German dub uncut fan-edits are actually meant to be in their original pitch.

But the sample is from a NTSC DVD, correct ? Your inserting NTSC DVD footage (720x480) into a "PAL" project ?

I'm not familiar with VeggieTales, but is it an American production ? If so, everything will be 23.976p originally, and the German dub version would have been converted by some method to 25p
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeggieTales

Speedup for "NTSC" to "PAL" is almost always the preferred visual method, because it's not jerky, no blends. How are you doing the audio for the NTSC inserts ?

1. I think VeggieTales was mostly 29.97fps until 2000. The show switched to 23.97fps in 2001.
2. I am inserting footage from an NTSC DVD into a PAL project, yes.
3. And yes, VeggieTales is an American production.

[poisondeathray]

1. I think VeggieTales was mostly 29.97fps until 2000. The show switched to 23.97fps in 2001.

I doubt it. It would be that 1 in a million exception

2. I am inserting footage from an NTSC DVD into a PAL project, yes.

The clips you provided were 23.976p content in 29.97p . (ie. not properly processed)

If you have examples pre-2000 , I suspect they are 23.976p content as well (23.976p organized in 59.94 fields /s for a NTSC DVD-video version , and originally broadcast in that format as well. The animation studio will have the 23.976p version - that is the original, original format prior to telecine)